Feelin' lucky, punk?

I read a lot of politically oriented posts on various web sites that are quite good, but only a very few that I think, "Man, I wish I'd written that."  This post by Mark E. Andersen for The Daily Kos, "Lucky to have a job," is one of those pieces.

Like many people, I hear this a lot.  And like too many people, I'm quick to be nice and give some inane response like "We sure are,' or "Boy, isn't that the truth."  But even as I say it, I don't believe it. 

We're lucky when we have good jobs--jobs that pay a wage that lets us get ahead, jobs where we get rewarded for hard work, for improving sales, for loyalty.  Jobs where we can grow into greater responsibility, provide a decent standard of living for our families, with good benefits so that our health and retirement are well taken care of.  Jobs where our bosses are actually paid commensurate to their abilities, and not how much bullshit they can spew or vitriol they can spit at the people who actually do the fucking work.

But we're not lucky to have McJobs, we're not lucky to be paid minimum wage (like Chris Rock said, minimum wage means if they could pay you less, they would), we're not lucky to have jobs with expensive health care premiums for plans run by HMOs who couldn't give a shit less if you--or even worse for some, their kids--live or die as long as they save a fucking nickel in the process.  We're not lucky to have jobs where we're told to do it or lose it, we're not lucky to have jobs where corporate executives are overpaid for their incompetence while we're asked to go without raises or take pay cuts, we're not lucky to have jobs where we're given all the autonomy of cattle.  We're not lucky to have jobs where we're considered an expense and not an investment.

Perhaps when more Americans begin to extol the former and eschew the latter, we'll actually be lucky to have jobs.

Peace,
emaycee